Lady Annabel Goldsmith is wary of being drawn on the issue of Julian Assange.

There is a lot that Lady Annabel Goldsmith’s most high profile children – Jemima, Zac and Ben – could learn from the wily matriarch about the political arena, public relations – and also, perhaps, human nature.

After Jemima hastily agreed to put up £20,000 in bail money for Julian Assange, only to later distance herself from the WikiLeaks founder and fugitive from justice, and both Ben and Zac subsequently posted but later deleted supportive messages about him on social networking sites, Lady Annabel alone seems to know that discretion sometimes amounts to the better part of valour.

“I do not wish to say a single word about Mr Assange,” Sir James Goldsmith’s widow tells Mandrake. “I think, broadly speaking, it is a good idea not to talk about subjects one doesn’t feel entirely on top of.”

It is hard not to see her words as a subtle criticism of her vociferous children. Jemima, possibly under the influence of her friend George Galloway, the Respect MP, was an early supporter of Assange, but cooled towards him when he took up residence in Ecuador’s London embassy, rather than face awkward allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. Galloway subsequently talked about how Assange should stand accused instead of “bad sexual etiquette,” which was a sentiment Ben Goldsmith initially appeared to concur with in an online posting. At least Jemima and Zac, so far as Galloway’s comments were concerned, decided not to utter a single word.

Jemima has so far declined to respond to my repeated attempts to establish what exactly her present position is on Assange.

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Lady Annabel may well have her own views on “bad sexual etiquette.” Sir James Goldsmith was the man who once notoriously observed that a man who marries his mistress creates a job vacancy. “I did feel jealous,” she once admitted. “I used to scream at him.”